Who doesn't like a good zombie flick? Especially around Halloween?
If you're a fan of zombies, this deck might be for you.
And if you're familiar with the Edric Turns cEDH archetype, then this deck is certainly for you.
What we have here is a Zombie Tribal deck, that's in the flavor of Edric Turns.
Simple enough, right? Let's get down to it.
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I. PLAYING THE DECK.
When it comes to your hand, and especially for Mulligans, bear in mind the number of lands and rocks that you have in hand. The average curve of the deck is just over two CMC, so ideally you'll want two to three lands and a couple of rocks in your starting hand, as well as a couple of cheap creatures for pressure. Starting out like this should allow you to be able to drop your general by Turn 3.
Land Tax serves 2 purposes in this deck; first as a ramp source early game, and second as discard fodder when drawing off your general.
As far as being in combat, bear in mind that your general's triggered ability doesn't require you to be able to do combat damage, just attack.
This gives your general an advantage over the traditional Edric Turns archetype; whereas an Edric deck has to actually do combat damage, you don't.
To aid you in combat, there are a couple cards to keep in mind. They are: Filth, Reconnaissance, and Dolmen Gate.
To make Filth a viable card, Filth is aided by 2 other cards: Entomb and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. We want Tomb on the field and Filth in the yard to make sure we push through damage.
Dolmen Gate and Reconnaissance help to make sure we can survive combat, as none of our creatures naturally have the ability to evade blockers (unlike an Edric Turns deck), aside from Filth.
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II. EXTRA TURNS.
This is where this deck and Edric Turns share a similiar path. In addition to the extra turns, we also have a few buyback spells, like Call To Mind, to buy those extra turns back and keep the gravy train going. Zombies can only move so fast, so what better way to get around that issue than to warp time and space itself?
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III. MIDGAME AND LATE GAME.
This deck is designed to be an early to mid-game deck. By the time you hit turns 4 through 6, you should be drawing into extra turn spells, or cards that will allow you to tutor for them. To make sure your extra turn spells resolve, the deck runs a respectable counterspell suite.
As far as breaking card parity, you'll notice that Alhammarret's Archive is in the deck. This'll make sure that you're no longer just looting, but that you're now card positive.
But be careful; you will have to destroy/bounce Archive when you get to around 10 cards or so left so that you don't deck yourself when you attack. Otherwise you'll have to kill off your general so that you don't deck yourself either. (Swords To Plowshares comes in handy here.)
As you get down to the end of the deck, the two cards that you'll want to pay attention to are Nexus of Fate and Beacon of Tomorrows.
While you can discard Nexus of Fate, you cannot discard Beacon of Tomorrows. Thus, when attacking with just a few cards left in your library (less than 5 usually), discard Nexus and cast Beacon to shuffle them both back (so you don't deck yourself).
When you hit 2 cards left in your library, specifically Beacon of Tomorrows and Nexus of Fate, bear the following two things in mind...
A. Only swing with one creature, preferably your general. Commander kills are faster than normal combat damage kills.
B. Sequencing Extra Turns...
If you draw Beacon as your draw for turn, you can cast it during your first main phase if desired.
If you draw Nexus as your draw for turn, then wait until second main phase to cast Beacon, after you have discarded Nexus.
This ensures you have 2 cards in deck at all times: one to draw each turn, and one to loot each turn (again so you don't deck yourself).
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Budget alternatives...
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Prairie Stream and Sunken Hollow can be subbed in for Tundra and Underground Sea, which are about $1,000 together. Sea of Clouds and Morphic Pool can also come in, however, they can't be found with fetchlands. [If and when WOTC makes other Tango and Bicycle lands available, the Orzhov Tango land can be swapped for Scrubland (which is around $200 itself).]
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Capture of Jingzhou and Temporal Manipulation aren't cheap. Karn's Temporal Sundering and Temporal Trespass are reasonable alternatives for these two cards.
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Counterspells like Force and Pact can be swapped out, but it's not suggested. You want to be able to tap out and still counter something if needed. Foil (Prophecy, Uncommon) is a reasonable swap for Force, but Pact is cheap enough today to afford (it's around $10 to $15).
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If you have any other questions feel free to ask.
